UFC President Dana White held a last minute media call Thursday afternoon, with no immediate reason provided to the media.
When White finally got on the phone he announced that former heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar was withdrawing from his UFC 131 bout with Junior dos Santos over health reasons. It seems Lesnar is suffering again from diverticulitis in his abdomen again and there is some question as to his future within the sport of mixed martial arts.
“Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has diverticulitis again,” said White. “He spent all day yesterday over at the Mayo Clinic and he’s gone through a bumper to bumper of tests. This thing acted up on him again, he’s got some serious choices to make in the next couple of weeks on whether to fight this thing or take the surgery.”
“I want to thank the UFC and Mr. White, and I want to apologize to Junior dos Santos and Spike TV,” said Lesnar. “This is an unfortunate situation for me. I dodged a bullet about two years ago with diverticulitis by not having the surgery. But diverticulitis is an illness that never goes away. It’s something that I’ve dealt with since my first occurrence and have been battling with it. I’ve been able to maintain it to a point where it’s tolerable, and I was able to go through two training camps. I’ve been dealing with some symptoms over the last three months, and during the course of this training camp, I felt another infection and got a CT scan done on my stomach, where there was visible inflation. It didn’t allow me to train to my full capabilities, and I was forced to make a decision to go back down to the doctor this week to figure out how far this thing was along. It’s not as serious as last time. It just didn’t allow me to train the way I needed to train for a number one contender’s bout. I am forced with the decision to either have surgery or to deal with this for the rest of my life. So I’m fighting a different fight here. It was a hard decision (to pull out of the fight), I’m choked up about it, but there’s nothing I can do.”
Stepping as a replacement for Lesnar will be former No. 1 contender Shane Carwin. Carwin was already preparing for his own fight at UFC 131 as he was scheduled to face Jon Olav Einemo, no word was given as to who Einemo may face next.
“Junior is a serious fight and not the type of fight that you would normally take on a 30 day notice but I have a dream to chase and I do not have a lot of time to chase it,” wrote Carwin on a blog on his website Shane-Carwin.com. “This is an opportunity to put myself in contention for the title. I know my Coaches will have me ready so I have everything to gain.”
UFC 131 is scheduled for June 11 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.